Dessert Works — Restaurant in Westwood

PLEASE READ REPLY TO BUSINESS AT THE BOTTOM

I was told by the owner to “try one of those other places next time” when thinking about ordering my custom cake here. If that’s not terrible customer service then I don’t know what is.

Context, I ordered my sons 1st birthday cake with specific details in which they messed up. They blame their software company for glitching even though I came into store (over a month in advance) in person to pay and talk about my order in detail in which notes were taken pen to paper and put into a physical folder.

The cake was presented incorrectly as the decoration was not as ordered. They tried to rectify as best they could but it was definitely not like what I had ordered. I was left with no choice but to take the cake giving the party was just an hour and a half out.

After speaking with the owner I was asked “is the cake not even worth $50?” considering this was a 6” cake that I paid over $100 for initially. I said no because this was not what I had originally ordered and the adjustments made to it last minute made it look messy and just not what I had wanted. After explaining this and that fact that I was left no time to get a replacement the owner was reluctant to finally offer me a full refund but basically told me to not shop there again in the future.

I have been left in tears by this awful service after being a customer of Dessert Works for so long and trusting them with my sons first birthday cake.

An apology and a refund would’ve kept me as a customer but clearly money is more important than loyalty and customer service to this company. Think twice before placing your order here. I’d hate for you to be in my shoes.

REPLY TO RESPONSE FROM DESSERT WORKS: 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

If customers are more important to you why would you expect me to be left without a cake for my event in order to justify, in your eyes, a full refund? How is that keeping your customer happy? Please explain that…You left me with 1 hour 30mins until the party and you expected me to leave the cake and be left with absolutely nothing in order to get my money back? So crazy!

To add insult to injury you spoke to me with such rudeness telling me to shop elsewhere. I was calm and completely honest and you chose to be passive aggressive which to me is very unprofessional. I still did not rise to this and accepted my full refund and politely said goodbye. I’m not sure how this qualifies as a way of speaking to be told to shop elsewhere? Clearly honesty especially when it is negative is not accepted here.

Instead of asking me “is that not worth anything to you?” you could’ve come to me with an apology and an offer of what you could do to put things right but instead you kept trying to explain and justify all of the reasons why you under delivered instead of trying to make amends. I was on the phone with you a good 5 minutes and you never once offered me anything in compensation and then said “now I’ll let you speak”. Not sure this service could’ve been any worse and now to try and clutch at your reputation you are trying to make me out, your once loyal customer, to be someone I’m not.

I just can’t believe after reducing me to tears you are still going at me like this is my fault. I ordered a product and you did not deliver. End of story.

Please please anyone reading this be so careful when entrusting this company with your orders and particularly if you expect excellent customer service that they “uphold” themselves to because I got none of the above and have been left in tears by this absolutely gutting and just...

We are grateful to Dessert Works for their loving care of our wedding cake. Honestly the cake was an afterthought to us when we started planning our wedding, to the point that we had decided not to have one.

We chose the Lenox Hotel as our wedding venue (also gets top marks, btw). The Lenox partners with Dessert Works for wedding cakes, which is an early indicator of the quality product and service you're getting from the latter. But even so, we initially opted to exclude the cake from our wedding package. Wrong idea. We finally got around to looking at Dessert Works' website and when we saw their enticing list of flavors, our mouths started watering. We followed up with the Lenox and said hey, we DO want the cake.

We got to work with Ashley at Dessert Works. Her warmth and kindness over emails and calls did not go unnoticed. She made it clear that our big day was special for Dessert Works too. And she made the process easy as could be, from intake to the final call to confirm the guest count.

We were super excited for the cake tasting. Dessert Works gives you their 6 most popular flavors to sample, with the option to add flavors for a small fee. We got 8 flavors which proved more than we needed! We couldn't do the tasting at the bakery, because we were coming from out of town and were on a tight schedule, but Dessert Works made it easy to do our tasting to-go. They packaged all the cake slices into a neat box, each slice wrapped in plastic, with a container of their American and Italian buttercreams on the side. And because neither of us had time to pick it up ourselves, Dessert Works kindly let my mother-in-law pick it up for us. She reported back that the service was great.

We chose a combination of their Chocolate Mousse and Vanilla Chocolate. Both have chocolate mousse, of which I am a huge fan. The mousse is delicious, but not too rich. The cake is moist, and not overly sweet. The lightness of the vanilla cake and the density of the chocolate cake provide nice balance. We had an extravaganza doing a self-led cake tasting with the matron of honor - herself a chocolate lover who affirmed that the mousse was the right choice.

From there, Dessert Works kept things moving without ever stressing us out. For the cake design, they sent us a photo gallery of past designs as inspiration. We quickly latched on to an elegant yet simple design of lotus branches with pretty red and pink flowers. We had a video call with Ashley and filled out a comprehensive questionnaire that further improved the experience. And that was all we needed to do for cake planning.

On the day of, our 3-tier cake exceeded our expectations. Delivery and setup were so seamless, we had no idea it was happening. We didn't think about the cake until we walked in for our reception, and there it was, sitting majestically atop a table. It was DEFINITELY more beautiful in person than in photos. We wish we had more time to admire it.

And how did the cake taste that day? Delicious. I had a slice of the Chocolate Mousse to end the night, and it was the best piece of chocolate cake I've had in a long time.

Oh, and that tradition of saving a slice of the cake for your anniversary? Dessert Works takes that to the next level with their "honeymoon cake," a beautifully packaged mini version of the wedding cake. It was the cherry on top.

We are thrilled with what Dessert Works gave us: A terrific cake created by terrific people. It's funny, we never got to meet any of them in person, so we'll just have to stop by the bakery in Westwood on our next trip...

This is an updated review. I’d like to start off with how beautiful the cake was that I bought from Dessert Works. Unfortunately, the inside of the cake was a completely different story. I picked the cake that I wanted to get for my boyfriend’s birthday online. (on Dessert Work’s’ website) The website was great, it had many different cakes to choose from, many flavors to choose from, etc. So, since my boyfriend is a 31 year old male, I picked a classic birthday themed cake. I then picked the confetti flavor. When it came to picking the frosting flavor, they only have 3 options: American vanilla buttercream, Italian vanilla buttercream, and chocolate. Not much variety at all. There are definitely a lot of people out there that do not like buttercream frosting. Since those were my only choices, I went with the American vanilla buttercream. The price of the cake was very reasonable and it seemed like a very nice atmosphere when I walked in the bakery to pick up the cake a few days later. Fast forward to when we were celebrating and about to eat the cake- (I said in my previous review that we ate it from the refrigerator, meaning it did not sit out for longer than 2 hours like the sticker on the box had suggested) As soon as I cut the first slice, I noticed the 2 VERY thick layers of frosting on the inside of the cake. Honestly, there was more frosting than there was cake. The confetti flavor of the cake was very good, after having to pick around all of the frosting. The cake was also extremely dry and not moist at all. The top of the cake had a decent layer of frosting, which is normal, but the inside and entire outside of the cake had extremely thick and an unnecessary amount of frosting. In my opinion, it was 40% cake, and 60% frosting. On their website, that is not in this certain cake’s description at all. I didn’t think I would have to call to make sure the cake would be made with more cake than frosting. I suppose that was my mistake? Also, after my boyfriend and I had one slice a piece, we had horrible stomachaches and heartburn. This has never, EVER happened when we have eaten cakes similar to this one in the past. This next part of my review isn’t because of Dessert Works, but due to the global pandemic, purchasing a cake that wasn’t even close to their supposed standards was such a disappointment. The owner replied to my other review, and I called Dessert Works to try to talk to him/her to see if they could make this right and either make us another cake or give me a refund, and I have yet to receive a response. As of right now, I will not be a returning customer, nor will I refer anyone to go to Dessert Works for any kind of purchase. I hope this helps and warns anyone...